Where's my meatball?!

Last week I decided it was finally time to check out the new children's lit section at our local Chapters bookstore. Turns out it's pretty fantastic. It's colourful and bright and absolutely humongous, with spots for children to sit and read from row upon row of magical, wonderful books. I foresee many trips to this place in my family's future.

I was immediately drawn to the board book section, naturally, intent on buying baby Charlotte something new for her library. I never quite realized it before that moment, but let me tell you, there is a pile of board books out there.

After some searching I spotted a little book on the bottom shelf which I knew in an instant I had to buy. I grabbed it up without hesitation and headed for the check-out with Robert Munsch's "The Paper Bag Princess" in tow and a big ol' grin plastered across my face.

I adored this book as a child. I loved the illustrations. I loved the story. Yep. They made one of my childhood favourites into a board book and I couldn't have been happier.

Until I got home and actually read it.

Sure, the bare bones are all there. The drawings are all the same. But this board book volume is different. Very different. Dare I say it? Maybe just TOO different.

You see, there are a few parts of the original story that were my favourites as a child. I distinctly remember what they are to this day. Probably my favouritest line of all goes "The dragon didn't even have enough fire left to cook a meatball". And you guessed it. While the accompanying illustration is present, there is a distinct lack of any mention of a meatball. I could hardly believe it as I sat there reading. My heart sank to my feet. I read and re-read. Where's my meatball!?

I understand that board books, by their very nature, are short and condensed and so adapations must be altered to fit space constraints. My mother pointed this out to me over Christmas when she read Dr Seuss' ABC to Charlotte and noticed several missing bits. I wasn't bothered by it at all until they decided to mess with MY Paper Bag Princess and the adored uncooked meatball.

This whole fiasco has put me in an awkward position. Do I withhold this version from Charlotte and introduce her to my beloved "real" version when she's older? Or do I simply insert the meatball and any other important missing bits when I read it to her now? I haven't decided.

I do know one thing: read before you buy. Especially when it comes to board book adaptations of childhood favourites. You never know what delicious Italian dish might be missing. Buyer Beware!!

I Love You Through and Through

As a new parent, the one thing above all else that I hope I am able to teach my baby is that she is loved, no matter what.

Little wonder that Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak's "I Love You Through and Through" is one of my favourite board books in Charlotte's library.

This book is sweet. A toddler and his teddy bear illustrate the rhyming story of everything that Mommy or Daddy (or whoever the reader may be) loves about baby. Baby's happy side. Baby's sad side. Baby's silly side, and mad side.

Remarkably, Rossetti-Shustak has managed to write a book which explains the concept of unconditional love in a manner that babies, as they grow and begin to understand language and its meaning, will surely grasp. What more can you ask for in a book?

I have to admit, I have had a misty-eyed moment or two while reading this to Charlotte (which is saying a lot, I'm not a teary kind of person generally).

Caroline Jayne Church's illustrations are fitting and wonderful. The little boy and his teddy are bold and bright, and really stand out against each page's subtle, interesting background. The image on the cover is quite indicative of what you will find inside.

Best of all, baby enjoys this book (almost) as much as I do! When it comes right down to it, I suppose that is all that matters, isn't it?

Charlotte always has a favourite page; in this book, she just loves the page that features a close-up of the little boy's face. She impresses me every time we arrive at this place in the book: she points to his eye and says "eye!" (which admittedly sounds more like "ahh" than "eye". It's cute as heck). She has been pointing at eyes and saying "ahh" for the past few weeks. My eye, Daddy's eye, eyes on toys -- even when I haven't shown her where this toy or that's "ahh" is before. But pointing out the eye here is especially impressive. This eye seems rather abstract. It's a dot, for heaven's sakes!

A second ritual (that she was actually doing long before she ever started pointing out the eye) occurs when we read the "I love your ears and nose" page. She turns around and points to MY nose. It's also very cute.

We love this book. I highly recommend it. Would surely make a perfect baby shower gift too!

Scholastic Canada - I Love You Through and Through
@ Amazon.com & Amazon.ca

Buy board books

Some lessons are harder learned than others.

I picked up "One Two Three: An Animal Counting Book" by Marc Brown a couple of weeks ago at a local thrift shop for 50 cents. As a great lover of books, and vintage items from the 1970s, this hardcover book is right up my ally.

My heart skipped a beat when I spotted it in the bin where it had been haphazardly tossed with dozens of other children's books. I touched the cover. It was an old library book, with that clear plastic stuff libraries put on dust jackets to protect them. You know what I'm talking about.

I love old libraries books.

This one was published in 1976. As soon as I opened that plasticy library cover, I was in love. This book is gloriously 70s. It smells like the 70s (or what I imagine the 70s must have smelled like) for goodness sakes!

Marc Brown's drawings look like they belong in an old Sesame Street sketch. There is not much for text here. Just numbers one through twenty, and the animals used to illustrate each number. Simple. To the point.

I knew better than to trust this book in the chubby little hands of my baby. But I couldn't resist. I wanted to read it too. And Charlotte is an enthusiastic page turner...

I guess I did an amazing job taping the page back together, because you can't really see it at all in this photo. But it is there. A big, ugly tear, nearly half of the page ripped off completely.

It was a sad day. I gave baby a kiss on the cheek because she is cute, fixed the page as best as I could, and put the book in her room on the bookshelf to be rediscovered at a later date.

Charlotte isn't quite ready to learn her numbers yet, anyway. Though gloriously 70s, the illustrations aren't colourful and bright, so she didn't seem especially interested. And then there's those paper pages. Clearly, this book is not for young babies.

A difficult lesson learned, but a necessary one nonetheless. Buy board books. Or at least keep them well away from enthusiastic baby hands if you find yourself unable to resist!

"One Two Three: An Animal Counting Book" on Amazon.com